


not just the but The

by Visardist



Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith), Transmetropolitan
Genre: Decapitation, Gen, Minor Violence, allusion to human sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1768912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visardist/pseuds/Visardist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The City doesn’t remember xer name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not just the but The

The City doesn’t remember xer name. There are other Cities besides xim still, but they don’t come to visit any more. Some, both human and City, call the naming of it ‘arrogant’, ‘ridiculous’, ‘nothing to take pride in’. There are campaigns every year to give xer a new name, but as always, none of them come to fruition. Water off a duck’s back.

Xe remembers dimly the battles when the humans decided to bleed one city into another, how xe and xer nearest brothers and sisters battled and fought and the people came to stare, to try and capture videos or photos, digital or Polaroid. No one interfered; some tried, but there were more people to bundle them bodily back long before they ever managed to cross the invisible circle. Blood remained on the pavement when xe got up at last, but in the morning they came to remove every trace of it.

(the photos and the videos make their way across the internet, just empty images of a crossroad surrounded by gaping people. only the Cities see the ghostly violence of streets and skyscrapers, less the dim shape of a fist and more the slamming of concrete into steel)

(and again, and again, as the humans kept closing the spaces, kept bleeding city into city until xe is not just the City but The City)

When letters come, however infrequent, they are addressed varyingly to ‘The City’ or ‘City’, or most commonly ‘The’, as if that is xer name. Xe supposes it is as good as any. Sometimes, even, when xe is trying to be funny, xe introduces ximself as ‘Thé’, like the French word.

Xe isn’t easy to find, which, admittedly, is somewhat the point when xer streets number over a thousand. But xe splits xer time between the slums and the reservations, for differing reasons.

The slums are where xe goes to be unrecognised. Xe’s the lucky touch, the healthy one, and xe’ll sit with a child while they wait for business or talk to a drunk as he goes to sleep for the last time. Here is where xer paintings and portraits aren’t shared, aren’t shown on the flickering newscreens. Here is where xe talks a little while with people who don’t remember xer, and sometimes with people who do.

The reservations: ah, the reservations. The reservations are buds of Cities inside ximself. Tiny Edos and Tikals-that-were. Xe doesn’t like to break the illusion of those living there. Xe hates to watch xer children give up xer and enter into those little places, those little supposed-Cities, but xe admits there’s something to be said for deserts in miniature, highlands brought low. The people’s memories are toggled not to question why their Cities are children, rather than the grown adults that should be.

Sometimes the Cities that come to visit xer ask to be taken to the reservations, to remember, and sometimes to laugh and point out historical inaccuracies. Beijing smiles queerly at the little boy who replaces her here, laughs and calls him ‘Xiao Bei’ and dandles him on her knee. When she walks xer streets, arm in arm with xer, xe points out escapees from the Chinese reservation. Beijing shakes her head ruefully and shares with xer a private smile.

(the fourth Tikal, like her predecessors, will not let go of xer when xe comes to see her end through, and she coughs and she coughs while, not far away, the last of her children lies dying, and she asks xer why this must be so, why she must go out like the others before, like a chain of fireflies, and xe has no answer, so like the first, the second, the third, xe closes her eyes again, lays her out, gently chops her head off and throws it into the water as with all her children, all the Tikals before)

But the one xe never visits is the Farsight reservation. Sometimes Farsight makes it out anyway, slips past barriers and guards and looks amused at the archaic technologies and devices used outside the walls that keep the Farsight community out of sight. Xe never meets Farsight- xe is always too far for that, and increases the distance when xe realises that Farsight has come calling, but xe always reads Farsight’s letters, which each begin, “Dear parent…”

**Author's Note:**

> For readers of Transmetropolitan, Paris Burning is a Les Misérables fanfiction wherein Paris, and all other cities, are personified, and has currently grown into a rather monstrous community which may be found here. I have tried my best to personify the City within the bounds of that imaginary world.
> 
> For readers of Paris Burning, the City is more technically a megacity which is set in the far future. The year is not known (literally, in Transmetropolitan, the exact year has been lost between now and the future, so things are dated in ‘___ years since blahblah happened’), so I have taken a leaf from Budapest’s book and done the same with the many, many Cities that eventually become the City. The reservations are in every way as historically accurate as possible, down to the point of the residents actually believing that they’re in that particular time period. Tikal in particular is stated to be closed down and begun again every few years as the residents are sacrificed and their drinking water poisoned from the sacrifices.
> 
> If you are readers of both, then I hope I have been accurate to both fandoms.
> 
> I have tried to be respectful to the cultures in the reservations named here; please correct me if I have not.


End file.
